Ch 10. Gender Stratification Flashcards
Gender
Personal traits and social positions that members of a society attach to being male or female
Gender Stratification
The unequal distribution of wealth, power, and privilege between men and women
- Margaret Mead’s research (Gender in Global Perspective)
Men and women behaved very differently in different societies (some men had female roles, and some women had male roles)
- George Murdoch’s research (Gender in Global Perspective)
In most pre-industrial societies, hunting and warfare fall to men and domestic duties to women, but beyond this pattern, societies showed variation in tasks
The socially constructed nature of gender identities means gender identities are…
- Are not stable or fixed
- Do not need to be congruent with sex assigned at birth
- Are not polar opposites
- Gender inequality is reinforced by gender stereotypes
- One stereotype that prevails is the beauty myth (the idea that women are overwhelmingly required to exhibit a certain physical appearance)
Stats regarding Working Men and Women
- Women are 47.7% of the labour force (2022)
- In 2020, 63.4% of women were in the labour force compared to 71.9% of men
- Women dominate helping professions (pink collared jobs), and men dominate most senior positions and trades
- Pipeline theory (as we see more women to enter the workplace, we should see representation of women in STEM or men dominated careers. In reality, we haven’t seen this played out.)
Examples of Pink Collar Jobs
- School teachers, counsellors
- Paraprofessionals, in legal, social, community, and educational services
- Administrative positions and office workers
- Nursing
- Health care support staff
- Administration in financial services
- Human resources and business services
- Customer and information services
- Social and community service professionals
- Cashiers
- Food and beverage services
- Policy, program researchers, consultants and officers
Stats about Gender, Income, and Wealth
- Women earn about 89 cents for every $1 men earn (2022) (same education, same task)
- The average income for women in 2022 was $36,250 and for men was $46,210
- Kind of jobs: sales and service
- Women still bear more responsibility for parenting
- Discrimination: a glass ceiling
Housework: Women’s “second shift”
- Women work full-time and do most of the housework and childcare
- Men support the idea of women entering workforce but resist taking on an equal share of household duties
Stats regarding Gender and Education
- Women now earn more than half of under- and postgraduate degrees
- Enrolment in math and physical science has increased
- Women accounted for 57.3% of all graduates in 2017, and they outnumbered male graduates at every level of education except at the doctoral level, where they accounted for 45.6% of all graduates. (Statistics Canada)
Gender and Politics
- Women are underrepresented globally
- Just under 23% of seats in the world’s 193 parliaments
Violence Against Women
- Violence against women is 1.8% higher than the rate of violent crimes against men
- Men are more likely to be the perpetrators, being responsible for 83% of violent crimes committed against women
- Indigenous women are more likely than non-Indigenous women to report harsh violence, as well as a higher likelihood of fearing for their lives
- Our culture tends to define “real men” in ways that result in a higher crime rate, with a high number of male perpetrators (men also tend to not report violence done against them, especially if done by a female)
- Men’s lives involve more stress and isolation than women’s lives; the suicide rate for men is three times higher than for women
Talcott Parsons’ (Structural-Functional Analysis)
Men and women have complementary traits in socialization:
- Instrumental roles (rational, competitive for boys)
- Expressive roles (emotional responsiveness for girls)
Criticism: is it a correlation or causation? Theoretically, we can have complementary traits, but that doesn’t justify stratification.
Symbolic-Interaction Analysis
- Gender affects everyday interaction in a number of ways
- Women typically engage in more eye contact than men do
- Men more power socially than women; women expected to be more deferential towards others holding more social power
- Individuals socially construct the reality they experience as they interact every day
- Gender is an element of personal “performances”
Frederich Engels: (Social-Conflict Analysis)
- Men gained power over women in the past
- Capitalism depends on women consuming
- Capitalism needs men to be the workers
